Poor accounting practices, such as struggling to track billable hours or sending out invoices late, can lead to money leakage. So, with double-entry accounting, every financial transaction gets sorted into a specific category (assets, liabilities, or equity). Double entry accounting is a helpful practice for lawyers to know about, as it provides an extra guard against errors. Legal bookkeepers and legal accountants work with your firm’s financials, with the shared goal of helping your firm financially grow and succeed. Accounting software with a robust client relationship management system (CRM) saves time and streamlines your firm’s invoicing and billing workflows.

For example, the Clio Manage and Xero integration lets you apply a tax to an expense category in Clio, and that same tax amount will be applied to the client invoice in Xero. It’s essential that your firm’s bookkeeping of financial transactions and accounts be meticulous and accurate. Mainly, if you have many clients, then you can’t rely on unreliable methods of time tracking.

Trust accounting

They have software options that QuickBooks + LeanLaw don’t have, like document management, case management, and project management. Know what reports you need, have a list and make sure you “kick the tires” before you commit. Once you sign up for a demo and free trial (ask for it if they don’t offer), don’t wait to use it.

Then, you’re ready to evaluate the top accounting platforms for law firms. Manually inputting financial data and managing transactions takes 5 things you absolutely need to know as a business owner on yelp time and puts you at risk of unnecessary error. Notably, QuickBooks states that it saves customers an average of 40 hours per month).

Accounting software

Most firms will need three business bank accounts at a minimum—checking, savings, and a separate IOLTA or trust account. Without the proper business bank accounts, you risk inaccurate bookkeeping, messy records, and potential compliance violations regarding trust funds. By using sound bookkeeping practices to keep accurate records and consistently review the firm’s financial statements on a monthly or weekly basis, you’ll see your firm’s true financial picture. Committing to accounting for law firms will allow you to be better equipped to identify growth opportunities. For example, with QuickBooks Online and Clio, manage your firm’s financial information, trust transactions and disbursements, and online payments in one integrated cloud-based solution.

Regardless of which accounting software best suits your law firm’s needs, Uptime Practice wants to help you host it. It’s incredibly robust and flexible, making it a top choice for law firms of 10 time-keepers or more. Juris provides full-fledged accounting as well as nuanced, detailed billing for a variety of billing models. By embracing cloud-based solutions like LexWorkplace, law firms can navigate the digital transformation journey more effectively, ensuring sustained growth and enhanced client service. The term “law firm accounting” tends to be thrown around pretty liberally, and is often (inaccurately, in our view) used to describe billing and trust features. Create beautiful one-off or recurring online client invoices that are customized for your law firm.

This software also has a reporting tool that thoroughly analyzes your business tasks and finances. Then, the software offers estimates and other metrics to help you improve your business. For example, you may receive quarterly tax estimates to ensure your books are in order before the annual tax period. Zoho Books offers a free account with limited abilities you can use to test the software, or it offers a 14-day free trial with a valid credit card.

• There are four subscription levels which means that you can start small and upgrade to a higher plan as your business grows.
• To mitigate the impact of write-offs — or even having to accept a total loss — aim to employ these best practices (and the technology to support them).
• To reach zero AR, firms must use batch billing processes and automatic withdrawals for payment.
• Unfortunately, if you are the one who is still handling all the accounting of your law firm by yourself or completely outsourcing it, then you are at risk.
• Create recurring invoices and customize templates to represent your brand consistently.

With this software, your accounting of the firm will always remain updated and accurate. LeanLaw is wholly integrated with QuickBooks, so if you like QuickBooks but want a legal accounting system, you must have this software. It is one step ahead of QuickBooks as it is capable of recording everything from general to records to advance accounting systems. That includes things like affordability, ease of use, and suite of features (client management, financial management, project management, etc.). You can make the right buying decision only by knowing exactly what features you’re looking for. There are four subscription levels which means that you can start small and upgrade to a higher plan as your business grows.

QuickBooks Online: For streamlined legal accounting

Without regular—and accurate—financial reporting, you may not see potential opportunities, and smaller problems may inadvertently escalate. You can try it free for 30 days with no strings attached and no credit card number required.

• Furthermore, it will also help in increase the productivity of your staff as you can track whether they are doing work or just sitting.
• From the expenses spent on the client to overhead costs, you need to maintain everything.
• It allows for more meaningful financial management that isn’t influenced by the ups and downs of cash flow.
• It’s disruptive – no matter how this software will streamline your workflow, you have to learn a new way to do your legal billing and get into the habit of using it.

In addition to sophisticated law practice management and document assembly/form assembly features, LEAP provides time tracking, billing, trust accounting and financial reporting capabilities. ProLaw is robust practice management, document management and accounting software for law firms. It’s the only legal software platform that includes all three of these main pillars to running a law practice. This gives you the best of both worlds while making your law firm’s comprehensive accounting situation easier to manage. Trust accounting must be done correctly in order for law firms to stay compliant.

Common Features of Legal Practice Management Software

There are thousands of certified legal bookkeepers specializing in QuickBooks Online, making the switch easy and affordable. CosmoLex is cloud-based, which means you run the software from a web browser. ProLaw is desktop/server-based, so it can be run on-premise or within a Private Cloud. ProLaw also offers ProLaw Workspace, an optional web interface to the ProLaw system. But leave the actual accounting to separate software (which it may integrate with). When it comes to protecting data, you’ll enjoy Clio’s industry-leading security.

From understanding what software benefits your law firm to choosing the best legal accounting software for law firms, read on to learn more about your options. Patriot Software provides law firms with accessible online payroll and accounting software. This is intended to make employee management online software programs such as time and attendance, payroll, payroll tax filing service, human resources, and accounting software easier to use. Their offerings include time and attendance software, HR software, full-service accounting, and online basic accounting software.

This is why we recommend adding a LeanLaw integration, which is ideal for law firms with up to 30 attorneys. Zoho Books comes with all the features small law firms need from an accounting software, like creating recurring invoices, expense tracking, online payments, advanced reporting, timesheet, and more. Therefore, when researching and evaluating legal practice management software, you should consider if mobile support is a requirement and ask vendors about what kind of options they have. Without accounting software for lawyers, it’s easy to see how the above unpaid invoice could have gotten lost or forgotten. And while there are always ways to enhance your law firm billing process, utilizing accounting software for lawyers should be an obvious first step. See invoices paid 70% faster with LeanLaw’s streamlined accounting workflows.